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Kenzo Tenma
Dr. Kenzo Tenma is the main character of Monster. He is considered to be the best Neurosurgeon at Eisler Memorial Hospital but he disobeyed the Hospital Director's orders to perform brain surgery on Mayor Roedecker instead of a newly-orphaned boy, Johan Liebert. Since the boy arrived first, he decided to sacrifice his promising future to do what is morally correct and save Johan. Unfortunately, before long, the mayor passed away, and the boy and his twin sister went missing... Years later, Johan reappeared and revealed to be a cold-blooded murderer. Tenma, regretting to have saved Johan, goes after him to make justice with his own hands before he kills any more people. Biography Personality Tenma is a workaholic who prioritizes his patients and their well-being more than anything. Although he's a highly skilled neurosurgeon, he confesses to Inspector Lunge that during a surgery he's jumping out of his skin due to the fright of committing a mistake. Tenma is often obsessed with saving as many lives as he can. Johan enjoys toying with this mindset, sprouting several massacres possibly to challenge Tenma to prevent them. His kindness is prevalent trough the series - in contrast to Johan's unscrupulous nature - and he sometimes ponders about the moral of his actions. When he is worried (often with Johan) he neglects his own self care and goes as far as collapsing for lack of food or sleep. Other than that, he's overall an optimistic individual, or tries his best to seem so to others, giving words of encouragement to the people around him. When Lunge enters Tenma's psyche he discovers that Tenma doesn't fit in either Japanese or German society. Nevertheless, Tenma isn't too unsociable, and ironically in several flashbacks (Eva's and Rudi's) he is seen happily hanging around in a group. He does prefer to work alone rather than in a team if he can help it though. ''"All lives are equal" Tenma's motto and the reason he disobeyed Director Heinemann's orders to save the person who arrived first irregardless of social status. This ideal isn't just a matter of work ethic, much of Tenma's psychology stems from this principle and it's one of the reasons he struggles so much with his own decision of killing Johan. There's even a personality shift when Tenma starts to doubt his own belief. Many close friends of Tenma interviewed in Another Monster, including Eva, mention the reason they loved to be around Tenma is that he never looked down on them, and irregardless of his exceptional skills he treated others as equals or put more value in their habilities than his own. Relationship with Eva Heinemann Eva, Tenma's fiancee, cancels her marriage with Tenma after discovering he disobeyed the hospital director's orders. In Another Monster she explains that she did so because her father needed a right-hand man who he could put his full trust in. Tenma tried to reach Eva several times after they were separated but she harshly ignored him. Yet, when Tenma gets to be the head of the surgery department again, the papers are reversed, and Tenma ignores Eva's pleas to get back. Later, Eva goes as far as falsely accusing Tenma of murder and chases him to make him regret not wanting her back. Tenma still cares for Eva deeply, despise the cruel way she breaks off with him, and even escapes prison to save her from getting killed by Roberto. Finally, after Martin's death the two meet again and remain on good terms with each other. Timeline Background Born on January 2 1958 in Yokohama, Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan. Tenma is the 3rd son of a director of a prestigious Hospital and a former editor of a medical publisher. Both his parents had previous divorces, and his father had two sons from his previous marriage, who are seven and two years older than Tenma. Tenma stands out for being a bright boy who's always the top of his class; this allowed him to attend the best schools in the city which made his father proud. Through his life in Japan he made very few friends and didn't forge strong bonds even with his own family, that's one of the reasons given by Dr. Takahashi to why Tenma came to Germany and never went back. In his early childhood Tenma tried to make friends by clinging to his kid neighbors so they could play with him. The two bullied Tenma in return. Despise that, Tenma earns their respect after a game of hide-and-seek; the bullies go home during the game leaving Tenma hiding alone. After hours pass by, his mom calls asking for the whereabouts of her son. The two get extremely worried and go look for him, and they find out he was still waiting in the same place during that whole time. Amazed by his endurance, the two genuinely become his friends. In middle school, a teacher goes too far with his punishment and humilhates one of his classmates in front of the class for playing with a coal heater. Tenma stands up for that classmate to protect him from being further mistreated. In his teenage years, tenma loved music. He learnt how to play guitar but didn't join a band, maybe because he didn't want to be in a group. His all time favorite song is Let's Stay Together by Al Green. His talent for music eventually becomes dormant as he gets very busy with his studies. He also participated in the school's track and field club. He entered one of the best schools in Kanagawa perfecture. His path was pretty much set by his father at this time: he would ihnerit the Hospital and become its new director. Despise being his younger son his father found his brilliant scores far superior to his older brothers'. 1986 XXXX 1995 XXXXX Another Monster : ''Main article: Another Monster '' Werner Weber tried to interview him to have his account on the events surrounding Johan. The second chapter of Another Monster materialized through Werner's efforts on interviewing people who have known Dr. Tenma. This second chapter went straight ahead with facts on him: He was born 2nd of January 1958, in Yokohama in Kanagawa Prefecture. His father waa a director and manager of a city-owned hospital and his mother a former editor for a medical publisher. Both were divorced and they had Dr. Tenma after the first year of their marriage. It is also revealed here that Dr. Tenma had two older half-brothers. Weber hired an interpreter to help him get around and he also tried to secure an interview with the hospital his father managed with no avail. He learned that Dr. Tenma kept in touch with very few of his friends, and those willing to assisst weber in his investgation declined upon knowing that he was a foreigner. Weber also confirmed Inspector Lunge's assessment of Dr. Tenma that he does not fit in the Japanese society nor is he culturally German--he is stranger to both cultures. Weber had, eventually, been able to interview one of Dr. Tenma's friends back in elementary and high school. That friend of Dr. Tenma was still living in near the Tenma household. When interviewed by Weber, he was very much surprised that his friend was linked to a series of murders, because beack when they were young, he was that kind of student who was very diligent and hard working. He also described Tenma to be very accomodating, despite his 'rich boy' status. He told Weber that Dr. Tenma liked sports, but team sports did not interest him. He was very good at solo sports though. Weber asked him what he remembers about Dr. Tenma in their childhood. He said he used to bully Dr. Tenma together with older brother that one time, they had come up with an idea to scare the young Tenma off. They asked him if he should like to play hide-and-seek with them. The young Tenma consented, and he was made the 'it'. Now, they really did not ide, but left young Tenma there in the woods for half an hour until they decided to get him back because it was creepy back there. The young Tenma actually peed in his pants because of panicking that he was left alone. His friends started calling him names, but he did not cry with that. The next time they asked Tenma to play hide-and-seek again, he thought Tenma would not fall for the same trick again, but Tenma again consented and played. This time however, they left him there for forty minutes. When they tried to look for him after that, they couldn't find him, so they concluded that Tenma had already gone home. Later Dr. Tenma's mother called them, asking whether they are still with Kenzo, so they went back on their play place and saw Tenma there, saying "''No fair, I've been hiding the whole time!". After that incident they stopped picking him and they started being friends. That friend of Dr. Tenma concluded after this incident that Dr. Tenma was always hardest on himself. In seventh grade, Tenma tried to play with the coal heater, heating it up until the metal pokers bend and twist. Their teacher, who was so used at employing corporal punishment to discipline her children, asked who did it. Tenma spoke up and he was scolded and hit. But he said nothing for that matter. However, when another classmate of his played witht he heater, his teacher scolded him and even pointed the hot metal poker on that student's neck. This made Tenma stand and he said tot he teacher, "You can't do that, it's too cruel. If you think this is education, I'll tell the principal and the Board of Education." Those words scared the teacher away. Weber was able to interview another friend of Tenma who was a commercial film director. He described Tenma as a 'straight-A' student in his eighth and ninth grade. Although being on the top of the class, he was not singled out and got along with everyone for the most part. When Weber asked him if he believes Dr. Tenma is a mas serial killer, he said it was because of this question that he is reluctant to agree in this interview. He firmly believed Dr. Tenma cannot be a murderer. But then again. people don't always stay the same, and because the German government treats it like it is a big deal, there's a possiblity that it is true. He also said he was not able to call Dr. Tenma and check on him because he himself is struggling whether or not to believe in Dr. Tenma's innocence. When asked about Tenma's preoccupations in middle school, he said Tenma was a good guitar player and even said that Tenma was multi-talented. Tenma, he says, was very quick on appreciating other people's abilitites and belittles his own talents even though he has his own innate talents. He also said that Dr. Tenma did not like being in a group altogether, thereby getting at a concensus with the previous interviewee's statement. When asked about the music Dr. Tenma liked, the film director said the he Tenma, liked this one laid-back song he saw from the from Tokyo Music Festival on TV, but he forgot the title of the song. Thethird person Weber had interviewed was one of Dr. Tenma's high school friends who was now a section chief of a large trading company. He said he was friends with Dr. Tenma through high school, but after entering college, they kind of lost touch with each other because of Dr. Tenma's medical classes and him being at Law School enjoying his college life. He firmly stated that he was one of the people in constant contact with Dr. Tenma before he moved to Germany. When asked if he believed Dr. Tenma was guilty of the crimes pinned on him, he said he used to make a lot of jokes about it in front of their friends but deep inside he was worrying about him. Other Design Tenma is the character whose design changes the most during the course of the story. In his first appearance he is seven heads tall making him look younger and cartoonish. From volume 2 onward Urasawa changes his proportions for the academically ideal number of heads in art in a standard human figure: eight heads. Tumblr m84tqpe2j11qc6s8m.jpg|Tenma's proportions in volume 1 Tumblr m84v5bvscm1qc6s8m.png|Tenma's proportions in Volume 3 (Of course Tenma isn't the only one to change, Urasawa's art goes through a big evolution during the course of Monster.) Parallels with Nina Fortner xxx Quotes Trivia *He shares the same birthday with Naoki Urasawa, January 2. *In an issue of Casa Brutus featuring Urasawa's work, he ranked 3 in Genius/Talent and 1 in Self-Indulgent. * The kanji of his name (賢三天馬) mean Wise, Three, Heaven and Horse respectively. *Although in the first volume Tenma says his father is a small-time medical practitioner, Another Monster disproves this by explaining that his father was in fact the director and manager of a city owned Hospital. Pictures Category:Characters